Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have really taken off in the last couple of years. I was aware they existed but it was only a few months ago that I took the plunge and signed up for one. I wasn’t really sure what to expect in terms of course content, time requirements and difficulty, so I thought I’d talk about the two I’ve taken so far.

A couple of friends had taken courses on Coursera so that’s where I signed up (although there are many other options). Coursera hosts courses run by many different universities around the world, on all manner of subjects. There are loads of courses starting throughout January so now is a good time to see if anything takes your fancy. Most run for between four and 12 weeks, and generally ask for 4-8 hours per week to watch the lectures and complete the homework (although this is quite variable depending on how easy you find the subject).

The courses aren’t ‘worth’ anything in the sense of traditional qualifications. An interesting development is that some of the more rigorous Coursera courses have a ‘Signature Track’ option where you can pay some money to have your identity verified and get some real university credit for your work. I’ve not looked too much into this though.

So why did I want to do a course in the first place? I’ve read quite a few popular science books on physics, quantum mechanic, string theory and the like but they always shy away from the actual maths (understandable if you want to sell any copies). Without the maths though it’s impossible to understand the subject beyond some vague hand wavy concepts. I was looking for some way to delve a little deeper into the subject without doing a full physics degree, which is rather impractical when you have a job.

From the Big Bang to Dark Energy

The first course that caught my eye was From the Big Bang to Dark Energy. It’s a short four week course from the University of Tokyo giving an overview of the history of the universe and basic particle physics. The only recommended background knowledge was some simple high school maths, so I wasn’t expecting anything too difficult.

There were a couple of hours of lectures per week which were engaging and easy to understand. They concentrated on general concepts rather than equations (although there were a few equations scattered around), in particular focusing on why we know what we know from a range of recent experiments.

This course was aimed at the more casual learner. It was very light on the maths in the lecture videos, but used the homework questions to introduce a few calculations (mostly just cancelling units and multiplying a few numbers). You could quite happily ignore the maths and still get a pass, and you were allowed nearly unlimited attempts at the questions (hence my final score of 100%).

While a lot of the content was familiar to me I still learnt a few things, and I would recommend this course to anyone looking for a light introduction to the history and evolution of the universe (assuming the course runs again).

Analysis of a Complex Kind

The second course I took was Analysis of a Complex Kind on complex numbers and complex analysis, from Wesleyan University. This was a completely different experience. It was much more formal and rigorous, and felt a lot like a traditional university-level class. I spend probably 6-9 hours per week, which was sometimes a struggle. Even though the course was only six weeks long it felt like quite a commitment (although that may just be a comment on my general level of busyness).

I wasn’t overly familiar with complex analysis before the course outside of a few bits at school and university, but elements of it keep cropping up in my reading so I decided it would be interesting to learn more. You definitely need a strong interest and ability in maths before considering this course, and if you’re going into complex numbers cold then it’ll be a steep learning curve.

It made a change to go back to working with pen and paper, and I got through reams of the stuff by the end. Picking up a pen is something I rarely find myself needing to do these days. The assessments were mainly multiple choice questions, but there’s a deceptively large amount of work needed to find the answers.

One new feature for me in this course was peer-assessed assignments. These were questions that involved drawing graphs, or long-form answers that couldn’t be multiple choice. You can either scan in your work on paper or submit PDFs created directly on computer, and then you’re provided marking guidelines and have a week to assess four other people’s work. The process isn’t perfect (I saw one or two marking errors) but that’s why everyone is marked four times and averaged. Doing a decent job of marking others’ work actually took a fair chunk of time, longer than I was expecting.

I was pleased with my final score of 94.8% (fractionally missing out on a distinction). It was a good workout for the brain, and even though I’m unlikely to use anything I learnt in this course day to day I suspect it’ll come in handy should I pursue any further maths or physics-based education.

Overall

These type of courses work really well if you can reliably dedicate a few hours per week. I won’t be taking any more for at least a couple of months as they monopolised my free time somewhat (and I have other projects I want to work on), but I’m sure I’ll be back for more.

A lot of the courses seem to be being run for the first time by people who haven’t done this kind of thing before, but don’t let that put you off. These two were both well run and offered great learning potential. MOOCs are likely to only improve in the future as people get more used to what works and what doesn’t. Find something you’re interested in and give one a go!

Many games claim to offer you the joys of command. Direct legions of soldiers, hordes of tanks or fleets of ships to do your bidding on the tabletop or the screen. But this isn’t real command. Pixels on a screen don’t look to you for inspiration in hopeless situations. Plastic miniatures don’t care if you descend into panicked paralysis. What you need for real command is real people. And this is something that most of us rarely, if ever, experience.

If you want to take your command skills to the next level, here are two games that will show you what it’s all about.

Space Cadets: Dice Duel

Space Cadets: Dice Duel is a game where two teams each fly a spaceship around a board trying to destroy each other. I had the opportunity to play a few games at Nottingham Gamecity this year, and if you can find another seven players it’s amazing. The game is played by rolling dice to move, load torpedoes, drop mines, raise shields and fix target locks, but what makes it so good is that this is a real-time game with no turn taking – just frantic dice rolling and decisions under pressure.

Each player on your ship has a different role, taking control of one or more stations on the bridge. Engineering rolls dice to allocate energy to the other stations, allowing them to roll their own dice. Weapons is in charge of loading torpedoes by building them out of special dice with parts of missile drawn on. Sensors racks up targeting and jamming points which affect the range you can shoot and be shot from. Shields protect just one side of your ship, Tractor Beams let you move the enemy around and pick up crystals (which activate special powers) and finally the Helm rolls arrow dice that move the ship around.

All of this happens at once until someone shouts “Fire Torpedo!”, at which point everyone stops. The distance between the ships, the sensor and jamming points, and the shields are used to see if any damage was caused. Take three points of damage and it’s game over. Otherwise it’s back to rolling dice as quick as you can.

While you can play with six or fewer people, it’s best with eight. This allows one person per team to play as the captain who does nothing but shout orders and tell their crew what to do. Having tried this a couple of times I have to say that it’s one of the most stressful roles ever in a game. Dice Duel is a game of perfect information – you can see where both ships are and exactly what your opponents are doing. But the situation on both sides changes so rapidly that trying to keep on top of it all is nearly impossible.

Commanding a ship in Dice Duel is this constantly for fifteen minutes, and it’s exhausting. If you’re like me and love the challenge of struggling to process information under pressure, and are willing to dive into the deep end and give it a go, then it’s incredibly rewarding. Remember, your crew are counting on you!

Artemis Bridge Simulator

If you prefer your spaceship simulations digital then Artemis Bridge Simulator may be worth checking out. It’s probably the most accurate Star Trek game made, despite not actually being Star Trek.

I played an early alpha version at a LAN some time ago, and the latest version sounds more fully featured. For optimal nerd realism is should be played with six players in the same room, where each player takes control of either Helm, Communications, Weapons, Science, Engineering or the command chair.

Each station can only view their own special display, plus a couple of generic screen such as the map. One cool thing is that the commander has no controls whatsoever, and has to ask other stations to put their displays onto his screen. Missions tend to involve the Comms officer finding out what’s going on (and randomly broadcasting abuse at enemy ships if you’re anything like my wife), before engaging in some tactical combat with lasers, missiles and mines.

Our game session was mostly a comedy experience, a mood enhanced by a pair of Spock ears and handmade tinfoil Star Trek badges being handed out beforehand. Going in blind also meant that the first mission sounded something like:

“Fire lasers!”

“Um, not sure how. Ah, there we are. Oh no it’s stopped.”

“Sorry, trying to give you some more power, try that. Huh, where did they go?”

“Whoops, accidentally warped away. I’ll just turn around…”

Before our voyage was cut short by attempting to nuke an enemy ship from point blank range.

After a few missions we got more competent and rather hit the limits of the very early version we were playing, and the game got a bit simple. However, I think the genre of asymmetric co-op is perfect for LAN parties and there is great potential in games like this. Co-op LAN games retain all the social elements that make board games great (but are probably even more niche due to the logistical challenges), and can be combined with the automation and more complicated rules that make computer games great. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what else people come up with in the next couple of years!